1815 - Kingdom of Kandy conquered. Britain starts bringing in Tamil labourers from southern India to work in tea, coffee and coconut plantations.

1833 - Whole island united under one British administration.

1931 - British grant the right to vote and introduce power sharing with Sinhalese-run cabinet.

1948 - Ceylon gains full independence.

Sinhala nationalism

1949 - Indian Tamil plantation workers disenfranchised and many deprived of citizenship.

Security was tightened when parliament considered watering down the Sinhala-only language law in 1958

1956 - Solomon Bandaranaike elected on wave of Sinhalese nationalism. Sinhala made sole official language and other measures introduced to bolster Sinhalese and Buddhist feeling. More than 100 Tamils killed in widespread violence after Tamil parliamentarians protest at new laws.

1985 - First attempt at peace talks between government and LTTE fails.

1987 - Government forces push LTTE back into northern city of Jaffna. Government signs accords creating new councils for Tamil areas in north and east and reaches agreement with India on deployment of Indian peace-keeping force.

A rebel attack on the airport destroyed much of the national fleet in 2001

1994 - President Kumaratunga comes to power pledging to end war. Peace talks opened with LTTE.

1995 - "Third Eelam War" begins when rebels sink naval craft.

1995-2001 - War rages across north and east. Tigers bomb Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist site. President Kumaratunga is wounded in a bomb attack. Suicide attack on the international airport destroys half the Sri Lankan Airlines fleet.

Peace moves

2002 - February - Government and Tamil Tiger rebels sign a Norwegian-mediated ceasefire.

2003 May - Country's worst-ever floods leave more than 200 people dead and drive some 4,000 people from their homes.

2004 March - Renegade Tamil Tiger commander, known as Karuna, leads split in rebel movement and goes underground with his supporters. Tiger offensive regains control of the east.

2004 July - Suicide bomb blast in Colombo - the first such incident since 2001.

2004 December - More than 30,000 people are killed when a tsunami, massive waves generated by a powerful undersea earthquake, devastate coastal communities.

A Tsunami killed thousands in 2004

2005 June - Row over deal reached with Tamil Tiger rebels to share nearly $3bn in tsunami aid among Sinhalas, Tamils and Muslims.

2005 August - State of emergency after foreign minister is killed by a suspected Tiger assassin.

2005 November - Mahinda Rajapaksa, prime minister at the time, wins presidential elections. Most Tamils in areas controlled by the Tamil Tigers do not vote.

Mounting violence

2006 April - Attacks begin to escalate again.

A suicide bomber attacks the main military compound in Colombo, killing at least eight people. The military launch air strikes on Tamil Tiger targets.

2006 May - Tamil Tiger rebels attack a naval convoy near Jaffna.

2006 August - Tamil Tiger rebels and government forces resume fighting in the north-east in worst clashes since 2002 ceasefire. Government steadily drives Tamil Tigers out of eastern strongholds over following year.

2006 October - Peace talks fail in Geneva.

REBEL KINGPIN

Rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in 2009 after a life-time fighting for a Tamil state

2007 June - Police force hundreds of Tamils out of the capital, citing security concerns. A court orders an end to the expulsions.

2008 January - Government pulls out of 2002 ceasefire agreement, launches massive offensive.

2008 March - International panel, invited by the government to monitor investigations into alleged human rights abuses, announces that it is leaving the country. Panel member Sir Nigel Rodley says the authorities were hindering its work. Government rejects the criticism.

2008 July - Sri Lankan military says it has captured the important Tamil Tiger naval base of Vidattaltivu in the north.

2008 October - Suicide bombing blamed by government on Tamil Tigers kills 27 people, including a former general, in the town of Anuradhpura.

2008 December - Sri Lankan troops and Tamil rebels claim to have inflicted heavy casualties on each other in fierce fighting in the north.

2009 January - Government troops capture the northern town of Kilinochchi, held for ten years by the Tamil Tigers as their administrative headquarters. President Mahinda Rajapakse calls it an unparalleled victory and urges the rebels to surrender.

2009 February - International concern over the humanitarian situation of thousands of civilians trapped in the battle zone prompts calls for a temporary cease-fire. This is rejected by the government, which says it is on the verge of destroying the Tamil Tigers, but it offers an amnesty to rebels if they surrender.

Tamil Tiger planes conduct suicide raids against Colombo

Tamil Tigers defeated

2009 March - Former rebel leader Karuna is sworn in as minister of national integration and reconciliation. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accuses both sides of war crimes.

Sri Lankan troops allegedly executed rebels in the closing days of the war

The government rejects conditions attached to an IMF emergency loan worth $1.9 billion, denies US pressure causing delay to agreement.

2009 May - Government declares Tamil Tigers defeated after army forces overrun last patch of rebel-held territory in the northeast. Military says rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed in the fighting. Tamil Tiger statement says the group will lay down its arms.

First post-war local elections in north. Governing coalition wins in Jaffna but in Vavuniya voters back candidates who supported Tamil Tigers.

2009 October - Government announces early presidential and parliamentary elections.

2009 November - Opposition parties form alliance to fight elections. The new alliance includes Muslim and Tamil parties and is led by former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Government says 100,000 refugees released from camps.

Rajapaksa re-elected

2010 January - Incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa wins presidential election by a big margin but the outcome is rejected by his main rival Gen Sarath Fonseka.

2010 February - Gen Fonseka is arrested on corruption charges, and jailed for 30 months by a military court in September. He is convicted of further charges in November 2011 and sentenced to another three years in jail.

President Rajapaksa dissolves parliament, clearing way for elections in April.

European Union suspends Sri Lanka's preferential trade status because of concerns over its human rights record.

2010 September - Parliament approves a constitutional change allowing President Rajapaksa to seek unlimited number of terms.

Human rights concerns

2011 April - UN says both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war committed atrocities against civilians and calls for an international investigation into possible war crimes. Sri Lanka says the report is biased.

Buddhism is the religion of 70% of Sri Lankans and predominant in Sinhala-speaking areas

2011 July - Sri Lanka's largest ethnic Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance, wins two-thirds of local councils in the former war zone in the north and east.

2011 August - President Rajapaksa says his government will allow the expiry of state emergency laws which have been in place for most of the past 40 years.

However, critics say that the introduction of new legislation that allows the detention of people suspected of terror offences without charge continues the state of emergency in a new guise.

2012 March - UN Human Rights Council adopts a resolution urging Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes allegedly committed during the final phase of the decades-long conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels. Sri Lanka says the move usurps its sovereignty.

Fonseka freed

2012 May - Former army chief and opposition presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka is freed after two and a half years in jail. His terms of release prevent him from running for public office for seven years, but he says he will fight Sri Lanka's "corrupt political culture".

2012 November - The government dismisses a UN report that it intimidated UN staff investigating abuses at the end of the civil war in 2009. The report also said UN human rights agencies had failed to fulfil their responsibility to protect civilians in the final months of the conflict.

2013 January - Parliament passes impeachment motion against Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake over 14 charges of financial and official misconduct, which the opposition says are politically motivated. She is dismissed and replaced by the government's senior legal adviser, Mohan Peiris.

2013 April - Amnesty International accuses Sri Lanka of intensifying crackdown on dissent. The organisation urges the Commonwealth not to hold its next summit - due in November 2013 - there unless the human rights situation improves. Sri Lanka rejects the allegations, saying that a rehabilitation process is under way.